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Homeschool Basics: The Importance of Play
Episode 20 • 27th June 2023 • Grace in Homeschool • AmyElizSmith
00:00:00 00:26:32

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20 : Homeschool Basics: The Importance of Play

I dive into the crucial role of play in homeschooling. Join me as we explore the benefits of play-based learning, incorporating the Reggio Amelia philosophy, observing children's needs, the value of open-ended play, and the pitfalls of pushing academics too soon. Get ready to be inspired and equipped with practical tips to make play an integral part of your homeschooling journey.

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Transcripts

Amy:

Play-based learning is the core on which all future

Amy:

learning and subjects will grow.

Amy:

Hi friends, and welcome.

Amy:

I'm your host AmyElizSmith.

Amy:

I'm a homeschool mom of three and have homeschooled each from the start.

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While I have a master's in elementary ed, I want to teach other mamas that you

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don't need a fancy degree to have the passion and knowledge to successfully

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educate your children from home.

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I hope to bring you encouragement to jump in and start your homeschool journey and

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provide my absolute best recommendations to help you begin your homeschool journey.

Amy:

Thanks for joining us along for this crazy, messy grace filled homeschool ride.

Amy:

Welcome back friends.

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I am so excited to talk to you about the importance of play today and how Reggio

Amy:

Amelia philosophy can be incorporated into your homeschool with your little ones.

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So play is the foundation of childhood learning.

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And for early childhood education, hopefully any educator maintains

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the belief that play-based learning is the core on which all future

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learning and subjects will grow.

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According to the American Academy for Pediatrics, children's developmental

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trajectory is critically mediated by appropriate, effective relationships

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with loving and consistent caregivers as they relate to children through play.

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When my son was four, I wrote extensively on what I observed about

Amy:

his play style and his learning style.

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At that time, I was a beginning blogger and I'm a former kindergarten teacher,

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so I liked to share on my blog all sorts of invitations to play and arts and

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crafts and learning letters and sounds that I gathered together for him in

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what we called tot school or preschool.

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Now I learned that my son, he didn't necessarily want to do what I put

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in front of him, and admittedly, I got frustrated that he was not

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dutifully attending to my invitations to play that I had created for him.

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But I took some time and I stepped back to think about this.

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What were my goals for how I wanted to teach my son?

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For what I wanted him to learn.

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So I wanted to be honoring to him and for him to learn in

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turn, to be honoring to others.

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I wanted him to be content and also to be an independent thinker and doer.

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He was definitely a natural born leader.

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I learned that from early on and I shared extensively how his learning

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style was different than what I expected or what I had been taught, maybe he

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should or shouldn't do, because it wasn't the typical standard of learning.

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I started to form my newfound thoughts into writings on my views and arts and

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crafts and what their purposes were, because I just saw a total difference

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in my son than what I had been taught for my kindergartners, for example.

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So this new philosophy that was new to me, it's not new.

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The Reggio Amelia inspired teaching and learning, it really inspired me

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to take a step back and to really see the child for who they are.

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Regio Amelia is a place in Italy and teachers in this location

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teach their students for at least three years at a time.

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And this is for early childhood.

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Now as a homeschool parent, we're doing the same.

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We are observing our children, we are taking cues from them.

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What do they enjoy?

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And really, and what I've consistently said is we are the most qualified

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to teach our own children because we know our own children best.

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In regards to my son, I knew where he had been.

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I knew his desires and his needs, and the more I studied him, I wanted to adapt his

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learning and his playtime to his needs.

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I wanted to anticipate his moves and be intentional with the

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activities that I chose for him.

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Playtime is so very important and again, it's important for it to be an

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open-ended experience versus what we typically see- the Pinterest friendly

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relationship to play, where the parent or the caregiver presents something

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to the child and they're expected to play with it or do something for them.

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But in Reggio, they don't have a preschool and they certainly don't

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have a full day kindergarten.

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Instead, all along, they encourage this open-ended learning and play.

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So what does this look like?

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I read from Julianne Worm, she wrote The Reggio Way and More working in the Regio

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Way, and I highly recommend these books.

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They were very eye-opening in learning about the Reggio approach and how

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it's different from a more structured, less creative environment that

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sometimes we in our own homes can create for our children when we're

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giving them non open-ended things.

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So I'll just pause there and say the plastic toys and the one game type

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toys, we've all had those in our homes.

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They're often gifted and they're very exciting cuz they're very colorful.

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And whenever we've had those in our homes, they have been

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fine and they are entertaining.

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But for what stands the test of time, they're really going

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to be those open-ended things.

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The blocks, the animals, the wooden kitchen set that can open your child's

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minds to all different types of play.

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So anytime that we have had the plastic race car track or the plastic toy

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that makes a certain sound, if you press a certain button, that's fine.

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And we've all been gifted those things.

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After my children were bored with those things.

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After a couple weeks, we definitely try to donate them.

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And that can also just help with parsing out your home and making sure

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your home is not just full of toys and the playroom you can't even walk

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through because it's so many toys.

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Regio Amelia, this is a philosophy started by a man named Lauras

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Malaguzzi, and he wrote a book called The Hundred Languages of Children,

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and he said this, "Stand aside for a while and leave room for learning.

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Observe carefully what children do and then if you have understood perhaps

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teaching will be different from before."

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Learning about Regio Amelia really helped give me a sigh of relief

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actually, because I realized that my son wasn't fitting the norm.

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For playtime or for activities I set before him or the arts and crafts, and

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that was okay and I wanted to begin to direct his learning into the kind

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of a project-based learning as he was three, four, and five years old.

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So that's when I'm talking about you today, because that

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child-directed time can be so good.

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We wanna nurture that play time and a caregiver or a parent can do so

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just with some very small tools.

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If the child is leading you, you can present some materials and manipulatives

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that can help them in that way.

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So here are just a couple examples of my son, when he was a spontaneous

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learner, when he read something in a book, he wanted to become

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that and he loved visiting the library about topics that he loved.

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And I tried to encourage all of those things and it was so fun to see him

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and in the same way my daughters but in, in different ways cuz

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every child is a different person.

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I saw them grow.

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So here's some things that my son enjoyed.

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He watched Toy Story, so then of course he wanted to become Buzz Light ear.

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So we created a jet pack for him from a cardboard box.

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He saw dragonflys outside.

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So he was a dragonfly for a couple days.

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He saw a spider.

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He wanted to be a spider.

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He saw a bee.

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He wanted to be a bee.

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He saw trains.

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Then he's the train he found out about Superman, and he was superman with

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super strength and super speed or he was a garbage truck or a magician.

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For many of these things, we would create projects based off of those things.

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When he started loving swords, we would create a Lego sword or he'd have a stick

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sword, and we made a little pouch for him to put his sword around his waist.

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And that became an obsession with Medieval times and Robinhood and even Peter Pan.

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I loved cultivating this environment where we would play together.

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He would play on his own and create these things that he wanted to be on his own.

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And that creativity can come from reading books and that individual playtime where

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there are open-ended things available, and I loved cultivating that environment for

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him and giving him the tools he needed.

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So I just wanna encourage you to not have anything planned.

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This is so freeing for us as parents that we can put together

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blocks out for our children.

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Find some little animals.

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I do love those little plastic animals.

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We have tons of those.

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And the child can create worlds with forts and blankets and sticks and be outside.

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And the rocks can be money and the flowers can be different things, and

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truly, if we don't make the other things available, like those one use toys

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or the plastic toys, then your child will create many different worlds.

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This playtime, like the AAP says, is so vital to their growth.

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And I like to just advocate because a lot of families when their child

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is put into these, and some headstart programs are okay because they are

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play-based, but they're stifled in the sense that they're put into classrooms

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with many one size fits all toys.

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And their brains and their curiosities are stifled because they're not

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able to just explore and create on their own through their curiosity.

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These small and loose parts, like I said about the blocks and the

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rocks and little sticks and strings.

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Those things can create so many different worlds from garbage trucks

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to bee hives, to spiders, to bugs.

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So much pretend play can be had outdoors, or when you bring

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those nature items indoors too.

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And it does not have to cost a lot of money.

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I know sometimes wooden toys, they can, but if you go to a garage sale,

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if you go to some local secondhand shops or Salvation Armies, you're

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gonna be able to find and be very choosy about what you find some

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great things that are secondhand.

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One thing we did love was a wooden train track with some little

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wooden Thomas the Train toys.

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And my son really did love those as well.

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And that's not necessarily very open-ended, but a lot of

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things could be done with that.

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In respecting our children for their desire to play and leaving them alone

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and not necessarily guiding their interests or guiding that playtime just

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sets such an amazing tone for their futures because as they're learning

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about the world around them and they're understanding their likes and dislikes

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and your attitude of respect towards that.

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It's going to help them grow into really strong and centered people.

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So for my son, I had to respect his dislikes.

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He did not wanna do the art that I might have wanted to have presented to him or

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the paper and pencil type activities that I might wanted to do, and I had to learn.

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I had to find out what was interesting to him.

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And I wanted to ask him about his work.

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I wanted to respect it, and I wanted to have him tell the story of what

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is he doing, what is he playing with?

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What are these worlds that have become?

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And if you've been around children, of course this may seem silly

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because you hear it all the time and you hear a child's wild

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imagination and it's so amazing.

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So back to that book, working in the Regio way, Julian Worm said,

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"Questioning develops a mindset that does not accept things at face value.

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This skepticism is crucial in creating an informed and active citizen.

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Teachers can anticipate where student agency may lead by

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virtue of their own experience."

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So these experiences that you're creating for your child or you're

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allowing your child to have really will help them lifelong.

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Now back to my daughters, they did enjoy arts and crafts or my putting

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more art things together for them.

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So they had more painting.

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They did more markering and that was so neat to see how very

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different every child can be.

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We just need to step back.

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We need to allow them to play and not direct it in those couple first years.

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Charlotte Mason and her writings, she expressed that children should not

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be taught formally until age six, and that is so vital for us to just take

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a step back and allow their mental capacities to grow through this place.

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So many things happen.

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Their imaginations grow.

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The fine motor skills, the gross motor skills, their brain neurons are just

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connecting like crazy through all of these activities and through learning

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cause and response and it's truly amazing to witness when we just take a step

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back and watch these things happen.

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And play is stifled.

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When we put our children in school too soon and we start pushing

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a curriculum far too soon, I'll admit that I did this with my son.

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I was doing the taught school.

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I was trying to really push those letters and those sounds with him.

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Now, it's not bad to expose a child to letters and sounds with blocks

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and have fun with them and read to them and point out letter sounds.

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Certainly the rhyming and the phonemic awareness activities can be so good.

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Nursery rhymes are vital.

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Reading poetry, reading good stories constantly is so important.

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But I'll say all the work I did with him and now if I could do it again I wouldn't

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have done all these activities, but it didn't help him to become a reader sooner.

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He actually wasn't a solid reader until he was eight or nine years old and

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didn't enjoy reading until at least 10 when we found some really great,

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actually, graphic novels that really pushed him into enjoying reading.

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Every child is different.

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My daughters loved playing with markers and paints and stickers, and I tried to

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keep that very open-ended and organic and having, an art table available to them.

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But my son he didn't wanna be any part of that.

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He wanted to play the games and work with those open-ended tools

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or create his own little worlds.

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So I mentioned Charlotte Mason, and actually the Waldorf philosophy

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of education is the same.

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They don't advocate for formal learning until even when a child

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their first teeth fall out and their front teeth are beginning to grow,

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and that can be even up to age seven.

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So Rudolph Steiner said, and I find this really interesting, he said,

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play is the work of childhood.

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When children play, they're experiencing the world with their entire being.

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Now I certainly agree with the second part of that, but Waldorf philosophy

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is actually that free imaginative play in early childhood and children.

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Then they're learning skills that can be used later for academic learning,

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and they're not doing any worksheets or drill and practice exercises

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because their brains aren't ready.

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Certainly their hands, their dexterity isn't ready for writing yet.

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And the Waldorf philosophy, it incorporates music,, and recitation and

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acting, and finger knitting and drawing in the visual arts all during play during

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that beginning age of social development.

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So it's very wonderful.

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But going back to Steiner's quote, where he says, play is the work of a child.

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It's interesting because this quote is also used in advocacy of a Montessori

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learning environment where a child is set up with different activities that

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you're doing and it actually is work.

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But in the Waldorf philosophy, children aren't working.

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It is actually play.

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John Locke said "Children should not have anything like

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work or serious laid on them.

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Neither their minds nor their bodies will bear it.

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It injures their healths and they're being forced and tied

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down to their books in any age.

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At enmity with all such restraint has, I doubt not been the reason why a great many

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have hated books and learned all their lives after tis like a surf that leaves

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an inversion behind not to be removed."

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So author Mark Armitage explains this, and I think in a brilliant way, "I can see

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the reasoning behind saying, play is the child's equivalent to work, but it isn't.

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And saying it doesn't help, it's a distraction.

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It is belittling play and giving into the adult world idea that play

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is only worth something because it has a product or an end result."

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And this is the basis of a Reggio Amelia approach to play

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and learning in early childhood.

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The play in art, it does not have to have an end product

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for it to have inherent value.

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The process is what has value and the learning that is cultivated

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in the mind, though it is not measured, it is priceless.

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Charlotte Mason said five of the 13 waking hours should be

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at the disposal of children.

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Three, at least of these from two o'clock till five, for example, should be spent

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out of doors in all but very bad weather.

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Brisk work and ample leisure and freedom should be the rule of the homeschool.

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The work not done in its own time must be left undone.

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Children should not be embarrassed and they should have a due sense

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of the importance of time and that there is no other time for the

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work not done in its own time.

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She emphasized the importance of being outdoors in nature and play

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an unprompted play for children.

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Her comparison here is that play is not work and work should not have the place of

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play, even if the work has not been done.

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And she is not only speaking of the younger years, she is speaking of

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elementary and beyond should be filled with masterly, inactivity, and in nature.

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This is a time where a child is not directed and they can choose their

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afternoon activities and even embrace that boredom that all too often children

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in today's culture just don't have.

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Charlotte Mason prescribes that children should not be formally taught to read or

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write until that's six years of age, and there's a value in play and the learning

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that comes through the brain development.

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Those motor skills, gross and fine.

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The growth of the imagination, the growth of creativity, all from

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the hands off from the adult and the hands on play for the child.

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I just wanted to mention briefly a little bit more about Montessori.

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Maria Montessori deviated from this approach.

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Her method of teaching focused heavily on creating an environment

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for specific tasks of learning.

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And I've incorporated some of these things.

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I love the Montessori practical life activities where a child is

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learning about sweeping and wiping and beating and zipping, and those

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are teaching practical life skills.

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But some of these other philosophies like Regio or Waldorf, I think even

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Charlotte Mason would say, that those activities are best done in the home

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in a natural setting as they come up rather than on a tray where you practice.

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I'm not too picky in saying, these are wrong.

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I certainly created many invitations to practical life to for my children, but

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I just wanted to mention the deviation there and how it is a bit different.

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So what can we do as homeschool moms?

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What is our takeaway here?

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Just encourage playtime.

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Encourage small parts, play.

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I'd encourage you if your playroom is just an absolute mess to, to glean it out

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and do this when the kids aren't around.

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Or you could make it an exciting thing and say, we're going to

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donate to children in need.

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That can be a time to really work with your child's heart.

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For them to be willing to donate things, but time and play, time

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and nature, less directed by you with less toys can be so worth it.

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And if you do have too many toys and I have been there with all the gifts and

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all the things, it's a really great idea to box up and have things on rotation

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too, so that a child when you maybe need to get things done in the afternoon,

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can be entertained by a box of toys that they only see, every couple days or once

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a week, if you have one, you have four total boxes and you use one every week of

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the month, that's a great way to do it.

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So please don't stress Don't stress about.

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Maybe if you have too many plastic toys or too many one, one size

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fits all toys, that is fine.

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My son loved that little baby Einstein little radio thing

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where he pressed the buttons.

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Babies love sound toys.

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I am not saying that we have to get rid of all of those.

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But I think that we can have a very good balance of things and as we're bringing

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more into the home or eliminating, we can think about what is encouraging

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their sense of wonder or encouraging their sense of, "I wanna create a project

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about this mom, let's go to the library."

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Let's go see what we can read about something and building something together.

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In today's public educational system, we push academics far too

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soon in the preschool programs, in those headstart programs.

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Now there is some emphasis on play, which is great, but if you look at

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even some of the European schools, it's a quite different approach.

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We've talked about Italy too, but in Norway, the children are

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only their only task is to play.

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You can see that in their later years how that has benefited them fully.

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I'm gonna link a great article about those Norwegian schools.

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I saw as a kindergarten teacher and that I had to push curriculum constantly.

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I wanted the children to play and have more playtime, but I wasn't even really

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allowed because the principal and I was directed to only teach curriculum,

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and that becomes so exhausting.

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But what's interesting is that in those elementary years, there's now

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a de-emphasis on academics and things like through ideas like creative

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thinking skills or collaborating with others or writer's workshop can come

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at the children when there's actually no foundation behind those things.

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In terms of writer's workshop, if a child hasn't been given the literature

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that has the foundation for beauty and grammar and spelling, then what

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are they gonna even be writing about?

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The classical education approach, this is where that comes in, and it's

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truly so important for our children to have a strong liberal arts education.

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So they can prepare them for creating and writing and arguing, and that rhetoric

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and that logic when they're older.

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Young children also love to memorize poetry, listen to those classic

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fairy tales, look at beautiful art, listen to beautiful classical music.

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All those things can be done without that heavy push for academics.

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So today, friends, I just want to encourage you to take a breath and not

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feel pressured to push academics too soon.

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Our children need playtime and my prayer is just that you can cultivate that

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importance of play in your own home.

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Emphasize the importance of nature time, and being outdoors, whether that's in

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your own backyard or at a local park.

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And emphasize the importance of reading to our children.

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If our children play, spend time in nature and are read to, they are more

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than prepared when they are six years old and ready for academics to have

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just a really positive ready approach to academics in their later years.

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So I'm gonna leave you with some beautiful Bible verses here from the book of

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Zechariah, and this is from chapter eight.

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Here, God is speaking about the restoration of Jerusalem after the

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Babylonian exile, and then when the Persians were taking over with Darius.

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But here it is, beginning with verse one.

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Then the word of the Lord of hosts came saying, "Thus says the Lord of hosts.

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I am exceedingly jealous for Zion.

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Yes, with great wrath.

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I am jealous for her, thus says the Lord.

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I will return to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.

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Then Jerusalem will be called the city of truth, and the mountain of the Lord of

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hosts will be called the Holy Mountain.

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Thus says the Lord of hosts, old men and old women will again

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sit in the streets of Jerusalem.

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Each man with his staff and his hand because of age and the streets of

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the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets,

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thus says the Lord of hosts.

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If it is too difficult in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days,

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will it also be difficult in my sight?

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Declares the Lord of hosts, thus says the Lord of hosts.

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Behold, I am going to save my people from the land of the east.

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I'm from the land of the West and I will bring them back and they will

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live in the midst of Jerusalem and they shall be my people and I will be

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their God in truth and righteousness."

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So God here is talking about the rebuilding of the temple

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when all is set right?

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And where are the children?

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They are playing in the streets.

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Our God designed our children to play.

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They deserve play.

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So give them that gift today, friends.

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And hopefully you feel no pressure from that and that's been encouraging to you.

Amy:

Thank you so much for joining us and I just wish God's blessing on you today.

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